It became generally known, before Sunday came again, that Albert was to take the farm, and that Seth was to go to the city—known not only along the rough, lonesome road leading over the Burfield hills, which had once been a proud turnpike, with hospitable taverns at every league, and the rumbling of great coaches and the horn of the Postboy as echoes of its daily life of bustle and profit, and now was a solitary thoroughfare to no place in particular, with three or four gaunt old farmhouses, scowling in isolation, to the mile—not only on this road, and at the four corners below, but even at Thessaly people learned of the coming change as if by magic, and discussed it as a prime sensation. It need not be added that the story grew greatly in telling—grew too ponderous to remain an entity, and divided itself into several varying and, ultimately, fiercely conflicting sections.
The Misses Cheesborough had the best authority for saying that Albert had acted in the most malignant and shameful manner, seizing the farm, and turning poor Seth out of doors, and it was more than a suspicion in their minds that the feeble old father would soon be railroaded off to an asylum.
On the other hand, Miss Tabitha Wilcox, who by superior vigor and resource held her own very well against the combined Misses Cheesbrough, knew, absolutely knew, that Albert had behaved most handsomely, paying off all the mortgages, making a will in favor of John and Seth, and agreeing to send Seth to College, and what was more, Miss Tabitha would not be surprised, though some others might be, if the public-spirited Albert erected a new library building in Thessaly as a donation to the village.
Between these two bold extremes there was room for many shades of variation in the story, and many original bents of speculation. Down at the cheese factory they even professed to have heard that a grand coal deposit had been surreptitiously discovered on the Fairchild farm, and that Albert was merely the agent of a syndicate of city speculators who would presently begin buying all the land roundabout. Old Elhanan Pratt did not credit this, but he did write to his son in Albany, a clerk in one of the departments, to find out if a charter for a railroad near Thessaly had been applied for. The worst of it was, neither John nor Seth would talk, and as for Albert, he had gone back to New York, leaving his wife behind.
On the farm the fortnight following the funeral passed without event. In the lull of field labor which precedes haying time, there was not much for Seth to do. He went down to the river several times on solitary fishing trips; it seemed to him now that he was saying farewell not only to the one pastime which never failed him in interest or delight, but to the valley itself, and the river. How fond he was of the stream, and all its belongings!
More like home than even the old farmhouse on the hill seemed some of these haunts to which he now said good-bye—the shadowed pool under the butternut tree, with its high steep bank of bare clay where, just under the overhanging cornice of sod, the gypsy swallows had made holes for their nests, and at the black base of which silly rock bass lay waiting for worms and hooks; the place further up where the river grew sharply narrow, and deep dark water sped swiftly under an ancient jam of rotting logs, and where by creeping cautiously through the alders, and gaining a foothold on the birch which was the key to the obstructing pile, there were pike to be had for the throwing, and sometimes exciting struggles with angry black bass, who made the pole bend like a whip, and had an evil trick of cutting the line back under the logs; and then the broader stretch of water below the ruined paper mill’s dam, where the wading in the thigh-deep rifts was so pleasant, and where the white fish would bite in the swift water almost as gamely as trout, if one had only the knack of playing his line rightly in the eddies.
A score of these spots Seth had known and loved from the boyhood of twine and pin hooks; they seemed almost sacredly familiar now, as he wandered up and down the stream, dividing his attention between the lures and wiles of the angler’s art and musings on the vast change of scene which was so close before him. Ah, how fair were the day dreams he had idly, fondly built for himself here in these old haunts, with kingfishers and water rats for sympathizers, and the ceaseless murmur of the water, the buzz of the locusts in the sun, the croak of the frogs among the reeds, for a soft inspiring chorus of accompaniment to his thoughts!
Now these dreams were really to come true; he was actually going to the city, to wear decent clothes, to mingle as much as he chose with men of wisdom and refinement, to attain that one aim and vision of his life, a place on a great paper!
It was only here by the river, rod in hand, that he seemed able to fully realize the beatitude of the vista. So as often as he could he came, and if there was a ground note of sorrow at leaving these nooks, this dear old river, there was also a triumphant song of exaltation in the air, the water, the sunshine, which he could not hear on the farm.
Partly because these excursions generally led him from the house before she made her appearance mornings, partly because he felt vaguely that his own victory over fate involved disappointment for her, Seth did not see much of Isabel during her husband’s absence. So far as he knew, she had taken the news of Albert’s determination to move into the country quietly enough. Neither by word or sign had she discovered to Seth any distaste for the prospect. But none the less he had a half-guilty conviction that she did not like it, and that she must blame him, or at least have so............